Blankets and Blood and Bones
by LittlePippin76
Summary: A series of 221B drabbles, all inspired by words starting with the letter 'B'. It sounded like a good idea in my head. Slashwise, it's an established J/S relationship if you want, but it won't be explicit. I love reviews. I'm just saying.
1. Blankets

**A series of 221B drabbles, all inspired by words starting with the letter 'B'. It sounded much better in my head. You can prompt if you want, but if not, I'll probably just rely on the dictionary.**

**It's an established J/S relationship, but it won't be explicit.**

Blankets

Sherlock steals blankets. It's a precise form of kleptomania. Sheets and pillows don't get a look in, though unexplained bedspreads have been known to suddenly appear in the flat.

John has a theory. It's based around Sherlock's refusal to except the necessity of a good night's sleep. Even when there's enough time for sleep and an available, comfortable bed, he would rather be wedged on the sofa or just deny himself repose out of sheer bloody-mindedness. John believes a small part of Sherlock's subconscious is rebelling against him, and it pilfers comfort items from wherever it finds them.

There are some from ambulances and hospitals (why, John doesn't know, as they can hardly be described as comfortable). There are several from hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, including one that's made from candlewick. It reminds John of his grandmother so strongly he's taken to wrapping himself in it whenever he's down.

John doesn't mind the thievery. It's fairly contained and not overly harmful (though he's sent compensation cheques to several places). It's clearly not Sherlock's worst habit, so he lets it go.

But sometimes at night his dreams turn arctic and he wakes up shivering. He'll turn to find Sherlock has graced the bedroom with his presence, and he'll be cocooned in the duvet, sleeping soundly. At those times, John wonders why he bothers.


	2. Blood

Blood

Sherlock doesn't mind the sight of blood; it's just a substance, it serves a purpose, it's of no importance. John's reaction to blood, when he noticed it, he found intriguing.

John quite obviously loves blood.

He loves the way it trickles down the skin from a gash or a cut, and how it slowly oozes to the surface to collect there from a gaze. He loves it bright red and frothy; clear signs that it is fresh from the lungs. He loves it dark, deep red, coagulating around a corpse, turned to the consistency of warm caramel, as if it's desperately holding the body to the Earth.

He's gratified by the huge amount of information he can glean from even a small amount of blood.

He would never cause harm as a means to see more blood. He's not an obsessive. However, if the blood happens to be there, he doesn't shy from using the opportunity to, y'know, watch it a bit…

Sherlock's blood is a particular joy. Fortunately, there's ample opportunity for him to get his hands on it in a variety of locations and situations. And when Sherlock's lost enough of it to make him calm and quiet, he'll sit quite still as John patches him up, and will allow John to gently stroke a thumb over his brow.


	3. Bones

Bones

Sherlock can name most of the bones in the human body. Before he met John, he knew a good few of them, certainly enough to give the impression that he had a solid grasp of human anatomy. He would quite happily have gone through his life with just this amount of knowledge, but then he met John.

John knew the name of _every_ bone in the human body, and on learning this, Sherlock made it his mission to equal his knowledge to John's. He studied _Grey's_. He went to Bart's to examine Molly's skeleton. The one she kept in her office, you understand, not the one that was actually _her skeleton_.

For some unknown reason, some of them still eluded him. He'd test himself over and over but he'd only manage to get about ninety-five per cent of them right. The fact that it was a different ninety-five per cent each time frustrated him.

"You don't need to know them!" John told him. "Hell, _I_ don't need to know them since I passed my anatomy exam!"

"That's not the point," Sherlock grumbled.

"Come to bed," John said.

He should have noticed the sudden gleam in Sherlock's eye.

When he woke up, he found the name of each of his bones written neatly in indelible ink right across the whole of his body.


	4. Believe

**A prompt from Mattsloved1. I hope this vaguely fits.**

Believe.

"Morning John."

"Morning Greg."

"How's things?"

"Good. Fine."

"Thanks for your help on the cyclist case."

"No problem. It was him mostly." He nodded through the glass towards Sherlock.

"Yeah, but you took a role. And I'm beginning to edge him further along the 'good man' scale, and in the right direction now. I'm holding you responsible for that."

John smiled. "I think he's a good man now. And none of it's because of me."

"Hm. But maybe he didn't need to make those kids quite as terrified."

"I'm sure it was necessary."

"And he left you locked in that attic."

"That was just an oversight."

"If you say so. I still think that his journey towards 'good' is going quite slowly, and it's only going at all because of, well, you."

"No. It's all him. He's brilliant. Sometimes it's hard to see, but he is. He's a genius, he does only as much as is necessary, he's… brilliant."

"So, watching him do this sort of thing doesn't shake your confidence in him at all?

Lestrade glanced through the viewing window into the mortuary, where Sherlock was running an experiment, testing how much weight would cause an arm to dislocate, then break, and how much would cause it to detach from the torso entirely.

John smiled. "Nope. Not even a bit."


	5. Breathe

Breathe

John is an observant man. He may not be quite as observant as Sherlock, but, in specific areas, he's got some game.

He knows, for example, that Sherlock can go for about 76 hours between food and faint. He's also learned that if someone was to drop a biscuit, or apple segment, or so forth into Sherlock's hand, Sherlock will generally put it straight into his mouth, chew and swallow, just to get the use of that hand back.

On one quiet evening, just for the fun of it, John had reviewed his CV and included; 'food dispenser' alongside; 'sounding board', 'moral advisor' and 'general dogsbody'. He didn't yet know that Sherlock had found the file and added 'companion', 'friend' and 'sex monkey' as well. John's observation skills are narrowly channelled.

The food didn't always prevent the faint though, and John had turned his observation up a notch. It was his right as partner and his job as a doctor to check that there was nothing more sinister than low blood sugar causing these moments of unconsciousness. When he had spotted the cause, he'd almost laughed with relief.

This is why, at critical moments of intense brainwork, when Sherlock has focussed all his energy away from the 'transport', John will walk gently past his friend, and softly mutter the word, 'breathe'.


End file.
